Parliamentary proceedings are beginning to look like a demo at Ratna Park. And the kangresis are falling right into the trap by gheraoing the rostrum every day, shouting slogans as the Red Guards try to shout them down from the middle row.
CA members are even coming to blows. Last week, Janata Dal rep Biswa Prasad Agrawal was beaten to a pulp inside Singha Darbar by none other than his party chairman Haricharan Shah and vice chairman Kabiraj Timilsina. Agrawal apparently had promised ten laks as payoff to Shah for having made him a member under the PR list: half before and half after he made it to the CA. But the guy never delivered on the second installment.
So Shah and Timilsina ambushed Agrawal, and for good measure also smashed up his SUV. The cops arrived, but couldn't do much because CA members apparently don't just have impunity but also immunity from prosecution. For the record: besides Agrawal, Haicharan has also nominated Dad and his daughter Gayetri under the PR list.
At the rate we're going, it's just a question of time before the honourable members start burning tyres and vandalising each other's nostrils inside the not-so-august house.
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Now that the epidemic of shoe-throwing at political leaders has spread from Iraq to India, it is only a question of time before it comes across the border. Which reminds me, one Nepali newspaper has called the global health alert as being caused by "Swan Flu": guess they thought a swine was a bird. Anyways, CA member Kamala Sharma actually preceded the Bush shoe in Baghdad attack by hitting Purna Bdr Khadka with her slippers in parliament last year. That didn't get her justice, so at her party's parliamentary office the other day Kamala threatened to hang herself from the rafters of parliament.
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Far away from all the fun and games is Upadro Yadav, who blew another Rs 55 laks on tickets and hotel bills for his Cuba trip. BRB refused to sanction the money, but the FM threatened to tattle to PKD. Upadro's logic is simple: this is a fight between pahadi bahuns and chhetris, with a gurung thrown in. If the army gets weaker, hill nationalism gets weaker, so why should I care?
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The debate in international commie circles about whether or not Nepal's Maobuddies did the right thing or not by shelving their armed struggle is heating up. This week there are international gostis in New York and London titled 'The Dynamic Role of Theory and Two-line Struggle' where ideologues will discuss: 'The struggle within communist parties and among communists generally over questions of ideological and political line vs eclectics, pragmatism and attempts to rely on tactical finesse and what amounts to bourgeois realpolitik-maneuvering within the framework of domination by imperialism and other major powers, and the existing relations of exploitation and oppression.' (Exact quote from press release.)
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Lots of speculation about who the deep throat is who leaked the intimate details of a meeting of The Rook with his top army brass last week to Kantipure. Well, it turns out it wasn't a leak at all but a disinformation drive, and deep throat was none other than Chairman Terrifico himself. Despite multiple crises, PKD finds time for all kinds of extra-curricular activities, even skipping the CC meeting Tuesday to watch a 2.5 hr documentary extolling the Maoist war made by Anand Swaroop Verma, a key Maoist cheerleader from down south. Tremendousness attended an event organised by Verma during his last visit to Delhi during which he said he will fight Indian political and economic expansionism: a day after begging businessmen at a CII meeting to invest in Nepal.
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'Tis the season for unnatural alliances. Sujata's anti-Katawal tirade was apparently because she wasn't invited to the Army Day parade. Now she is angling for DefMin from Cloudy. Pragmatist BRB and dogmatist Cloudy for their part are cosying up. Do they share an interest in weakening the Chairman? By trying to sound more radical than he is, Laldhoj maybe trying to shore up party support and present himself as an alternative supremo.
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From this week, we start in this space contributions from loyal readers and royal leaders alike of their nominations for the Absurdity of the Week. The Ass'd like to get the ball rolling with my own nominations for this week:
a.Headline in a Nepali paper: 'Peace Minister Threatens to Go Back to War'
b.The twice-postponed UML central committee meeting finally ended Tuesday with members agreeing that they should agree among themselves.
Send your nominations for Absurdity of the Week to:
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
